While driving a car next to me made the signal to roll down my window. They yelled "You have no break lights." I backed up to a window and checked. Sure enough, only the tiny light in the middle was activating.
My Kia Soul eats light bulbs. It seems like I'm changing a light bulb once a month. The headlights cost almost $100 with parts and labor. Luckily the rear bulbs only cost around $25 to have installed.
I am hesitant to do any car repairs myself. I'm also broke right now because of past car repair bills that are sitting on a couple of credit cards. The idea of dumping more money into a car that pushed me into debt makes me want set things on fire but driving without brake lights is idiotic. Great way to get a ticket. People here already drive aggressively here and having no break lights is an invitation to be rear ended.
How hard is it to change a break light bulb? I had no idea so I turned to YouTube for answers. Turns out it's about the most basic repair one could hope for. The guy in the video swapped them out in about 4 minutes with just a screwdriver.
After cruising down to Auto Zone, I parked near the three other guys who were working on their vehicles in the parking lot. I figured if I ran into trouble, maybe one of the other amateur mechanics could give me a hand. After identifying the burnt out bulb I removed the entire brake light from the back of the car and pulled out the bulb.
The clerk in the store looked up the bulb on her computer and took me over to select the correct one. To my untrained eye, they looked a bit different but she assured me it was the correct bulb and would fit. After telling me about how many bulbs I had lost in the last few months, she gave me a packet of bulb grease on the house. Pretty great. Two bulbs for about $7.
Worked like a charm. It took me about 10 minutes to replace both bulbs after leaving the store. I probably will not attempt any thing more complicated when it comes to repairs in the future but this one worked out. It was simple and satisfying to do it myself. The downside would have been me driving the two bulbs to a shop and having someone install the bulbs so not a huge risk. Either way, crisis averted.